Perhaps the most significant development on the Internet in recent years has been the rapid proliferation of online social networks, such as LinkedIn™ and Facebook™. Billions of users are presently accessing such social networks to connect with friends and acquaintances and to share personal and professional information. As these online social networks become increasingly popular, some enterprising individuals are beginning to exploit these online social networks for financial gain by populating member records with disallowed content, such as pornographic images, to attract customers to websites selling pornography, sexual services, drugs or counterfeit goods.
This disallowed content is offensive to many users of online social networks, and these users often become upset when such content appears while they browse the online social network. Also, some users of these online social networks are children, who should be protected from this type of content.
Hence, what is needed is a mechanism for efficiently filtering out disallowed content from online social networks.